Hands like Moonlight
by FinalBraus
Summary: Their mission goes horribly wrong. Stranded outside the walls with deadly infection soon to set in, Jean's life is on the line, but Sasha can't let him die—not with so much to lose. [M for gore, very adult themes]
1. Chapter 1

****Author's note: Hello and thank you so much for reading! I'm going to keep the notes to a minimum for this one but I'd like to establish that there is a trigger warning in place for this work; however, I can't list the specific triggers without giving away the story. If you feel like you could potentially have a bad reaction to blood, gore, or death, this is not the story for you. Thank you for your discretion and please enjoy, FinalBraus****

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The mission was a complete failure.

Sasha clung to the reins of her horse, her heart racing so fast that her chest ached. She could taste iron in the back of her throat, raw from her labored breathing. Her pulse was so loud in her ears that it nearly drowned out the earth-shaking footfalls of the titans on her tail.

Twenty of them, maybe more. It hadn't been anyone's fault; they had just shown up. No one had seen it coming. Maybe if someone had, it would have been different. Maybe then half of the Survey Corps wouldn't have been splattered across the prairie grass. Maybe then the rest wouldn't have been out of gas and blades, running for their lives on the off-chance that they could make it back in one piece.

The wall stood like the gates of heaven before those that remained, its white side catching the thick orange light of the setting sun. Someone at the front of the formation fired a smoke round high up into the air above them, a signal to raise the gate. It was going to be a close shot. The beasts were right behind them and closing in.

Someone at the edge screamed. A horse whinnied. A titan roared.

Sasha's stomach flipped. She didn't look back.

Armin and Jean rode on her sides, their eyes wide and clouded with fear in their desperate push for survival. Their horses panted under them, foam dripping around their bits. They were being run to death.

The air was heavy with the rank stench of the titans, like rotten meat, piss, and vomit. It suffocated her, coming in waves, like the things were breathing down her neck. Her spine prickled.

_Who is behind us?_

Before she could think, a massive, deformed hand shot out beside her, blocking Jean from her view. Her mind went blank with absolute, animal terror. It curled around the leg of his horse, pulling it back toward the titan's grisly smile like it was nothing but a child's toy. The poor creature let out a blood-curdling scream and crashed to the ground. Its legs snapped like matchsticks.

"_Jean!"_

"Sasha!" Armin shouted as she jerked back her reins and forced her horse around. "Sasha, wait!" but she barely heard him. She bent low over the neck of her mount, horror rising in her throat. _No one else_, she thought, her eyes wide and hollow.

_Not him._

His horse's ruined body was on top of him. The titan spread its jaws.

"Get away from him!" Sasha roared, jumping out of her saddle and straight into the monster's face. "Hey! Look at me, you big ugly bastard!" She could feel its breath rushing over her legs as she clung to its nose. It could have her between its teeth in a second.

It was like the world froze.

Its bloodshot eye rolled toward her.

With a primal shriek, she shoved her blades into both of its eyes. The thing cried out in agony and clawed at its face, just missing her as she yanked her handles free and dove away.

"Jean!" she yelled again, hitting the ground hard and sprinting to where his horse had fallen. "Jean, we have to go!"

But he was unconscious, blood gushing from the side of his head, staining the grass where she knelt as she threw her whole weight against the horse's broken body. Far away, someone in the squad shouted her name one more time, and then there was nothing but the sound of the titans, broken by chaotic screams. They could have been people she knew. It could have been Connie. She should have cared.

She couldn't see the survivors at all. She couldn't even see the titans. Her vision was blank, her mind focused on one thing. It was like there was nothing else; she just had to get the horse off of him.

It was so heavy. Her muscles were on fire, running on nothing but adrenaline. She grunted and dug her heels into the dirt, but it was useless. She could never have lifted it. The horse panted, its eyes rolling, wide with panic and pain.

She looked down at her last few blades.

It wasn't going to make it anyway. There was no hope for a horse with broken legs.

With a flash of steel and a sympathetic wince at its dying scream, Sasha cut the poor beast in half. It split over Jean's form in a mess of blood and flesh, tangling the boy in what remained of its intestines. "Jean!" she cried again, more to herself than him.

She bent down to pick him up, and only then did she see it. His leg was completely broken. The bone had punched through the skin.

_No…_

She grit her teeth and looked up. The titan's hollow eye sockets steamed. It reached up and pulled her blades out, letting them clang, bloody, to the ground. It was healing, and there were others behind it. They looked around the carnage of the Survey Corps with their glassy, empty eyes. There was no one else to distract them now. Bitter tears spilled down her cheeks. There was no one to help her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. His gear was broken, and she cut him free of its weight. Grabbing him by the shoulders, Sasha heaved him onto her back. His head lolled against her shoulder, his blood running thick and dark down her chest as she ran. It was so stupid. They were sure to catch her. She was five and a half feet tall. They were twenty.

It didn't stop her from running.

The world moved around her like molasses. It was a beautiful place, it must have been, this plain outside Karanese's gate. It would have been one of the richest parts of Wall Maria, full of people who wanted to live better but had found themselves just short. Closer to the wall, she knew, there was a village, but as her feet pounded the ground and her back strained under Jean's weight, she saw nothing around her but ruined farms. Barns and homes with roofs smashed to kindling stood out like carcasses on the gently rolling hills.

There was a house in front of her. She could make it.

But the titans were lumbering toward her now, moving slowly as their giant limbs gained momentum, their great footsteps shaking the ground and tripping her up.

_Even if I get inside, what am I supposed to do?_ She wondered hopelessly, the hard knot in her throat making it hard to breathe, hard to keep running. He was so heavy, and the house was so far.

_I am going to die. And he's never going to have known._

His head pressed against her neck, Jean moaned.

She bit her lip. The titans were going faster, and she was slowing down. People weren't meant to run with that kind of weight on their backs. Her legs were shaking so much that she could hardly make them move at all and her maneuver gear banged against her thighs, threatening all the while to trip her.

_I don't want to die like this!_

Suddenly she heard the beat of a horse's hooves behind her. Her heart pounding, Sasha looked back over her shoulder, seeing one of the Survey Corps' horses galloping towards her, out of the pack of titans. Someone had come back for her! She threw up one arm and waved, shouting at the top of her lungs.

As the horse drew nearer, though, the titans on its tail, she saw that it had no rider. It was only hers, coming back to its owner as it had been trained. There was no one else. Her heart sank. That meant that their squad really had left them. The gate must already be closed.

They were locked outside the walls.

Sasha shook her head. She couldn't think about that. It would drive her mad. She should have been thankful that she even got a horse.

"Here, boy!" she shouted, grabbing her mount by the mane and hefting Jean onto the saddle before pulling herself up and digging her heels into its flanks. It reared up on its hind legs and hit the ground galloping at full tilt. Gradually, the groaning titans disappeared into the fields behind them.

It took a long moment for Sasha to realize that she was riding toward the wall, and a longer moment to realize that it was pointless. She pulled back on the reins and swung around in her saddle, her eyes scanning the darkening landscape. The sun had finally dipped below a range of mountains in the distance, casting pitch-thick shadows over everything. She was far outside of the town now, nothing around for miles but scattered corn and wheat fields.

With a heavy sigh, she clicked her tongue and turned her horse towards a ruined barn standing at the edge of a field, half of its roof caved in and its walls bowed out. It looked more like a ribcage than a building, but she wouldn't be able to find anything better, not with nighttime falling fast.

Looking down, she saw Jean's hair soaked with sweat and blood. With every bump of the horse his brow wrinkled in pain, his teeth clenched so tight she was sure he would shatter them. "You're going to be alright," she murmured, reaching down and touching his face. His skin was clammy against her fingertips. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and stroked his cheek, trying to make him feel anything other than pain.

"Don't worry, Jean," she whispered, tears slipping silently down her face to land on his torn and bloody uniform. "Don't you worry. You're going to be fine."


	2. Chapter 2

Sasha pulled her fingers through her hair, making faces at herself in her tiny old mirror as she tried to brush out the tangles. It was the first night of that summer, and finally warm enough to sleep with the windows open. The sounds of her friends' laughter and raucous singing drifted into her room with the smell of clover and new leaves.

She smiled as one of the boys broke into a botched 'Long Live the King.' "I think Connie's drunk," she said softly, putting her mirror down and looking out the window. Outside, a cloud of fireflies danced like festival lights in the little field between the house Levi had brought them to and the forest beyond. Connie and Eren were splayed out in the grass, laughing loudly and passing a pilfered bottle of whiskey back and forth. She looked back at her bed. "D'you wanna go join in?"

Jean rolled over and looked up at her with sleepy eyes. "Nah," he mumbled, grinning stupidly at her. His hair was a mess, flat on one side and sticking up on the other. She laughed, pulling the collar of his shirt up to cover her mouth. He rested his head on the pillow, still smiling. "You look cute." She blushed, tugging his shirt tighter around herself. He held out his hand. "C'mere."

Sasha crept over to the bed and sat down. He reached up and ran his fingers through the ends of her hair. "You have to go back to your own room, y'know." She caught his hand and pressed a kiss into his palm.

"We have plenty of time," he said lazily. "You have pretty hair."

She blushed again. "Shut up," she muttered.

Jean laughed, sitting up and pulling her into a hug. After a second, she closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his shoulder, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, slow and steady. "You're dumb," she whispered, leaning up and kissing his cheek.

He drew back and smiled slightly, then pressed his warm lips against hers. Sasha laughed and kissed him back, the air from the window like a breath of summer over her bare skin.

He tugged at the corners of the shirt and she pulled it off, sitting on his lap.

"Wow, Sash." She saw his light eyes running over the curves of her body. Suddenly, he broke into a wide smile. "You have the greatest tits."

"You ass!" she giggled, and punched him playfully in the shoulder. "Don't tell me you're only here for my boobs."

"Of course not," he chuckled, pulling her down on top of him and burying her face in her chest. He kissed the spot between her breasts. "They're just so nice."

"Ahaha—Jean! That tickles!"

"You're prefect all over." He bent and pressed his lips into the pale patch of skin above her belly. "You're perfect here," he kissed her wrist, "and here," he kissed her collarbone.

She smiled to herself, looking down. "Nah."

He looked up at her, his amber eyes catching the glow of the fireflies from outside. She could lose herself in his eyes. Before he could say anything else, she touched his chin and pulled him into another kiss. Her stomach fluttered at the feeling of his lips against hers, her heart warm and full of the fact that there was nothing to hurt them there. No titans, no gangs. Just him and the summer night.

He kissed her nose and pulled her down beside him on the bed. "I love you, Sasha, all of you," he said softly, pressing his forehead against hers and rubbing his hands up and down her back.

"I know," she said, wrapping her arms around him and touching the tip of her nose to his. "I love you too."

.

She kicked open the doors of the old barn, the rusty hinges creaking loudly as they swung open. With Jean draped over her shoulder, she staggered in, her legs feeling like they were about to give out beneath her.

She brought him to a pile of old hay knelt down, laying him out as best she could before slumping against the wall of the building and closing her eyes. She blew out a slow breath through her nose. Her head was pounding, her muscles like jelly. All she wanted was to do was lie down and sleep.

_No_, she told herself, grunting and forcing herself back up._ You have to help him first._

Her eyes fell on the cut on his head. She touched his jaw, moving his face to the side to look at it. It wasn't deep, she saw, and already scabbing over. It had just been on his scalp. Scalp wounds always bled the most, right?

She couldn't help but sigh in relief. Then she looked down, and that relief was gone.

His leg was bad. She swallowed, bile rising in her throat. Worse than she had thought. The bone was not only broken but splintered. He would be lucky if he could ever walk again. And that wasn't counting infection.

"I have to make a splint," Sasha said, as if he could hear her. "That's the first step." She could use strips of her uniform, but that was hardly enough. She pushed herself up and looked around the barn until she found a harvesting scythe. It was old, and the wood was dry. She took her blade, still covered with his horse's blood, and started to saw away at it.

_What if he dies?_

The thought wandered into her head like a thundercloud on a spring day. _He's not going to die._ She told herself, frowning and trying to focus. _I just need to make him a splint and disinfect the wound and he'll be fine._

But disinfect it with what? She didn't have alcohol, and it wasn't like she could pour boiling water on an open wound.

"Shut up, Sasha," she scolded herself. "He'll be fine."

She broke the last of the wood free of the scythe with a kick and turned back to him, spreading his leg out on the hay.

_Oh god oh god it's so bad._

She was going to vomit. There was blood and mangled flesh everywhere. He didn't need a splint; he needed surgery.

She didn't know how to put a bone back together. She didn't even know where to start. She could feel herself about to cry again, but she grit her teeth and swallowed her panic. "I'm so sorry, Jean," she whispered, then scraped the grime off of her fingers as best she could and tried to put the pieces of him back together.

.

Her horse pawed the packed earth floor of the barn. There was no point. And what the hell could a splint do if he died of infection anyway?

Sasha sat back and held her head in her bloody hands. She had been at it for hours, working by the light of the moon as it cut through the holes in the decrepit roof, trying to put the little fragments and slivers of his bone back where they belonged, but it pointless. It was useless.

She pushed herself off the ground and kicked the wall so hard that pieces of rotten wood rained down on them from the roof. "Dammit!" She shouted.

Her horse snapped its head towards her, its eyes wide and ears flat back at the sudden sound. Sasha sighed heavily, reaching out and touching its soft nose. "Sorry, boy," she said, stroking it until it perked up again. "Good boy."

Glancing back at Jean, she saw him lying in a patch of blue moonlight. "I can't let him die." She looked back up into her horse's big brown eyes. There were a few hours left before the sun rose. If she was going to do it, she had to do it now.

Sasha sighed again. She pulled off what remained of her uniform's jacket and laid it over Jean, a pathetic excuse for a blanket, then pulled her exhausted body up into her saddle.

"Let's go find some booze, buddy."


	3. Chapter 3

The autumn night was silent as death and light as day.

The moon was almost full, hanging high in the night sky, and so bright that it was almost impossible to see the stars. She could see well enough as she guided her horse over the rolling hills and fields, but the colors were all wrong. In the faint light, everything was black and white, no colors at all. She felt as if she were caught up in a bad dream.

She rode to the top of a crest and looked around, scanning the farmland for a house. There must be one. How could someone have had a barn and no house? But then again, it might be nothing more than scraps of wood on the ground by now. Or what if she found a house, and it was empty? The people that lived so close to the wall had had time to evacuate. They took most of their things with them, didn't they?

She shook her head. It didn't matter.

To the west, Wall Rose stood, a monolith gleaming in the moonlight. She wondered if anyone inside was mourning her. She wondered if Connie was okay. What was he going to do without anyone to crack his jokes with? She pushed her horse faster. She didn't want to think about that.

Off in the distance, she finally spotted a tiny brick cottage casting its long shadow across overgrown sunflower fields in the moonlight. Her shoulders slumped with relief. Almost without being told, her horse cantered towards it.

.

But there was nothing there.

"No…"

It was empty

_What am I supposed to do now?_

"Damn it all!" she cried, holding her face in her hands and falling to her knees on the warped wood boards of the floor. There was nothing, _nothing_ in the house but a ratty, filthy, stupid old carpet and a broken bed frame. There was no food, no water, not even blankets. There was just…nothing.

She ran back outside and looked around, but there must not have been another house for miles. She would never make it that far before the sun came up, and what would happen if Jean woke up while she was gone?

What if he was in crying, screaming? What if he was in pain?

What if he was dying?

"This isn't _fair!" _she shouted up to the moon, throwing her head back. "Why did it have to be him? It could have been anyone else! It could have been any-fucking-one else and they took _him!"_

Her voice cracked and she jerked her hands up over her mouth, muffling a sob. _Why did it have to be him?_ She asked herself, trudging back into the little house, if for no reason other than to convince herself that it really was empty. She wiped the tears out of her eyes, even though there was no one to see, and kicked at the corner of the ugly carpet, flipping it back over itself.

Sasha's eyes widened.

A trap door.

"Look at that!" She cried ecstatically to her horse. His ears flicked. She ran back to him, digging out the lighter that she'd always kept in her saddlebags for emergencies, and broke off a piece of the bed frame to use as a torch

In a second she was on the floor, throwing the rug out of the way and staring at the door's black iron handle like a sign from heaven itself. She almost didn't believe it was there until her fingers curled around the cool metal, pulling it up and open.

Then the smell hit her.

_Titans!_

Sasha scrambled away from it until her back was against the wall, certain that one of them was beyond the little door. But a second passed, then two, and nothing happened. She crept back to the edge of the square hole and peered in.

Her stomach sank. It hadn't been titans. It had been bodies.

She lowered the makeshift torch down into the hole, cringing as it threw its flickering light onto the remains of a family. No, it wasn't the smell of titans. Just the smell of death.

The secret basement was shallow, little more than a crawl space. She jumped in and held up the light, illuminating what was left of a daughter clinging to her mother's neck, her father with a bony arm around both of them. Their skin was brown and dry, patches of it missing altogether. The three of them stared at her with hollow eyes and morbid smiles. She couldn't stand to look at them and yet she couldn't look away. It was like they were watching her.

She turned away and vomited onto the ground. Putting her hand on her stomach, she mouthed, "I'm sorry."

_Why are they here, though?_ She wondered, looking around. Her eyes fell on three bedrolls laid out in the corner opposite the bodies, a broken kerosene lamp perched on a crate beside them. They had been of those few who thought they could hide. Beside it, four leather-sided trunks were stacked heavy and black against the wall. Her mouth was dry. She swallowed. It could be food in there. It could be alcohol.

She took two of the bedrolls and threw them back up, out the trapdoor. She only had so much time before she had to start riding back in order to make it before the sunrise, and the stench was getting to her. She had to work fast. The trunks were locked, but they were cheap and their wood was splitting with moisture from being locked underground for so long. She dragged the top one free of the pile and its sides splintered.

Food. Piles of it. Dried meat and heavy glass jars filled with preserves that would have lasted the five years since the titan attack. She could have cried. The next trunk was more of the same, the third trunk was mostly jars of what she guessed was water. There was enough of everything to last those three a month. Yes, they must have been planning to hide.

"Well, you won, didn't you? The titans were never what killed'ya." She threw a glance over her shoulder to the bodies. The little girl seemed to cock her head. Sasha shuddered and looked away.

There was one trunk left, one last shot. She crossed her fingers, praying the father was a raging alcoholic, and broke it open.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Ha!" she laughed, pulling out cases of bandages, bottles of rubbing alcohol. Everything bore the rose emblem. It had been filled with cast-off Garrison first aid kits.

"Thank you guys," she said softly, turning and nodding to the corpses. She thought for a second, then took the last blanket and spread it over them, wishing she had time to properly put them to rest. "Thank you."


	4. Chapter 4

****Author's note: [a small but friendly reminder that reviews are literally my only source of validation in this world yes its very sad please review]****

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_"Oh I went to the market and bought gold for my lassie, my lassie, my lassie, o-way,"_ she sang happily, slipping off of her saddle and dragging the supplies in. It was an old song from her village, the kind her father had always sung when he came back from a good hunt. Outside the sun was just beginning to turn the eastern sky grey. _"My lassie she said, go and buy me a diamond, my lassie, o-way-o-way"_

She spread out her haul in the middle of the barn, hovering over everything like it were precious jewels. She picked up a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a clean cloth and spun on her heel, still singing softly. _"Oh I want to the market and bought rubies for my lassie, my lassie—"_

"I didn't know you were a singer, Sasha."

She stopped dead. "Jean?" she breathed, turning toward the hay where she had left him. Her heart skipped.

Jean pushed himself up on one elbow, looking at her with dull eyes. He stared at her for a moment. "My…my leg hurts," he said weakly, turning towards her as she ran over to him and knelt down. "And my head. I can't…why are you here? And where are we?"

"Shut up," she said, smiling even though her eyes stung with tears. She pushed him back down, uncapping the bottle and wetting the cloth. "I have to clean out your leg or you're going to get an infection. We can talk later." Her fingers shook, though she didn't know why. She had never been so happy in her life.

"But Sasha—"

"Shh. This is going to hurt."

"Sasha—_AAARGH! STOP!"_

Ignoring him, she pressed it into his broken flesh, wincing as he cried out in pain. "Sorry," she muttered. She was trying not to hurt him any more than she needed to, but there was only so much she could do. She looked up at him, his eyes shut tight and his jaw clenched, hoping that she had gotten to him in time. The cut had been open all night. There was a good chance it was already too late.

_Don't think like that._

Once it was bandaged and done, she wiped the dried blood from the gash on his head and hung the cloth on a rafter. She laid down next to him, listening to him pant and whimper as the pain of the alcohol faded. "I had to," she whispered.

"I know, Sash." He turned his head toward her, thin lines of tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. "You probably saved my damn life. It just hurts like a bitch."

She said nothing, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. The first rays of yellow sunshine crept in through the holes in the eastern wall. She hadn't slept in more than a day.

"There's no one else out here, is there, Sasha?"

She shook her head.

He sighed. "You don't have a plan, do you?"

She shook her head again.

He said nothing.

.

She was standing in her room, her own room, not the Training Corps barracks and not the cold stone one being in Squad Levi had earned her. Her room. In her house, in her village.

Sasha spun around, taking in everything; the dried wildflowers on her wall, the bed with the patchwork quilt her mother had made her, bow and quiver leaning against her bedside table. She hadn't been there in years. It sent a warm flutter through her chest.

Suddenly a growl ripped through the air and she turned to see a wolf standing in the corner, its grey fur standing on end. She screamed and ran, but the sound stuck in her throat, and her legs couldn't seem to find the ground. She stumbled out the door and into the forest, the wolf gaining on her.

"_Ya' took food wi'out permission again?"_

Her father's voice stabbed her in the neck like a knife. She fell to the ground, looking around frantically for him, but there was no other human around. The wolf leaped towards her and she scrambled back to her feet.

"_Stupid daughter!"_

It snapped at her ankles. She kicked it off once, twice, but it brought her down on the third time. Another failed scream. The thing pounced on her, all foaming jaws and wild eyes.

"_So selfish! Everyone needs to eat! Who are you to take from the winter store?"_

The wolf's eyes locked onto hers, and everything else went black. It had her father's eyes.

Suddenly the forest shattered, the whole world falling apart like shards of glass. The ground beneath her exploded into a million jagged bone-white pieces and she was falling, falling, falling

.

"Sasha?"

She opened her eyes, clutching desperately at the hay beneath her until she realized where she was. Sitting up, she let her eyes adjust to the shade of the barn. Outside the sun was setting, marking the end of the first full day outside the wall.

"Are you alright?" Jean asked. She held her face in her hands and stood up, waiting for the falling sensation to fade. Her nerves seemed to flicker with static electricity, waves of strange prickles running over her body. Almost without thinking, she ran to the corner of the old building and retched, but nothing came out. Acid burned the back of her throat. Made sense. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten.

"Sasha!" he pushed himself up, only to wince in pain as he tried to shift onto his broken leg.

"Don't. I'm fine," she managed, wiping her mouth off with the back of her hand. "Don't move. Stay there. I just had a bad dream."

He watched her from where he sat, not moving but not lying back down either. "Bad dreams don't make you throw up," he said skeptically, his gaze focusing on her like the wolf's, like her father's. She couldn't meet his eyes.

"How's your leg?" She asked, changing the subject and pushing herself off of the wall. She yanked off her grimy shirt to wipe her sweat-soaked forehead. Underneath, her loose tank top was sticking to her skin. She had never felt so sick in her life. She trudged over to the jars of water she had brought from the house the night before and poured some over her neck.

"'Hurts," he muttered, finally giving up and flopping back down into the hay. "My head feels a little better, though. I think I got off pretty easy on that one."

"That's good." She turned back and tried to smile for him, but it was then that she saw his face for the first time. His skin was pale as ash, tinged yellow. The scabbed cut on his temple stood out as an ugly black slash, making him look even paler. There were vicious dark circles under his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Jean asked, seeing her face fall.

She shook her head, walking slowly over to him. Without saying a word, she knelt down next to him and pressed her hand to his forehead. "I think…I think you have a fever," She said quietly.

For a long moment, silence hung between them. It was like smoke, suffocating. They both knew what a fever meant. She hadn't been fast enough.

"Oh," Jean said.

Sasha felt like she was going to cry. She forced a smile. "You'll be fine."


	5. Chapter 5

The sun set quickly in on those fields, daytime one second and night the next. The two of them passed the first hours of the night in silence, neither of them knowing what to say. Sasha walked aimlessly around the dirt floor of the barn, taking the saddle off her poor horse for the first time in two days, picking through the food she'd taken without wanting to eat anything, knowing that she should. She finally thought to spread the bedrolls out on the hay but then didn't want to sleep. She couldn't seem to focus on any one thing.

_He's going to die_.

The thought was sure as day in her mind, blocking out everything else. She held her head in her hands, hiding behind her horse so that he couldn't see. The animal nickered and pressed its big head into her side, its big eyes shining like jewels in the darkness. She leaned against its warmth, burying her face in its smooth coat. It smelled like earth. She didn't want him to go, and she knew that there was nothing that she could do. She hadn't been able to clean out his wound fast enough and now that was that. There were no doctors, no nurses, no medicine. She had been given one shot to prevent it and it was too late.

Sasha pushed herself off of the horse and walked over to him. She sat down behind him and pulled his head into her lap, stroking his messy hair as she leaned tiredly against the barn's wall.

Jean was awake, staring at a hole in the roof. His eyes reflected the thousands of stars scattered across the indigo sky, the Milky Way a bright ribbon across his vision. He swallowed, his throat dry. "Do you still love me, Sasha?" he asked in a whisper, his pale brown eyes turning towards her. God, he looked so sick.

She bit her trembling lip, nodding. "Of course I do, Jean. I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

He reached up and touched her face, wiping away the tears forming at the edges of her eyes. "Hey, Sash. Don't cry." She sniffed and pressed her cheek into his hand. He smiled faintly. "You're still so pretty, even like this."

"Jean," she started.

"Shh." He pressed his thump gently over her lips. "I want to ask you to do something for me, alright?" He waited until she nodded again. "I need you to take your horse and get back to the wall, okay? You know I'm not going to make it. I know you do. You shouldn't have to stay out here and risk the titans finding you."

She shook her head, covering her eyes. "Stop."

Sat up, wincing as he turned around to face her. "Sasha, you did everything you could. I would have died without you. I know you don't want to go, but I don't want you to die because of me!"

She shook her head harder. "I'm not going to leave you!"

"Why not!" He was more scared than angry at her, but she still jerked away from him.

"I'm not going to leave you," she repeated quietly, pulling her knees up to her chin. "I'm not going to abandon you like that."

"That's not a good enough reason for me, Sash. You're not going to die just because—"

"And," she interrupted in a breath, wiping her eyes and looking into his. "I'm pregnant."

.

Jean just started at her.

"Preg…nant."

She hugged her knees tighter to her chest and nodded.

"Like…with a kid?"

"I think that's generally how it works."

He blinked at her, once, twice, then put his head in his hands. "That can't be," he muttered, almost to himself. "No way."

Sasha sighed and stood up, brushing the hay from her pants. She could feel tears slipping out of her eyes. She pretended they weren't there. "I'll take off for a few. 'Titans should be out of juice by now." She could feel his eyes on her back. "You look like you could use a second."

"No," he said, grabbing her wrist as she passed him. "Wait, Sasha—"

"It's cool." She didn't know what she had been expecting, so she didn't know why she felt like she was about to break down. "I could use some air anyway."

"Sasha, come here," Jean said.

She yelped as he suddenly pulled her backwards, sending her flailing into the hay next to him. Before she could think he pulled her into his arms, holding her head against his shoulder. She froze in surprise. He buried his face in her neck and ran his hand up and down her back, tracing circles across her skin.

All at once she found herself crying, sobbing into his embrace. His tears spilled from her eyes and onto his uniform, still covered with dirt and dried blood. She could feel his fever all around her, too hot, much too hot.

"Don't go anywhere," he said weakly. "Please."

"Jean…" she couldn't finish. She threw her arms around his neck and pressed herself so hard against him that it hurt.

He laughed a little, though she knew he was in pain and she wasn't helping. "I-I don't know what to say," he whispered, stroking her hair as she wept into his shoulder. "I never even thought about ever being a..._dad._ It's just—just—it's a lot."

Outside, the moon rose up on the horizon, throwing its bright light through the holes in the walls. After a long while, Sasha's sobs finally slowed, her tears running dry. She looked down at Jean's leg, but couldn't bring herself to ask him how he was. Silence hung around their head like a ghost.

"Why didn't you tell me before we left?" he asked finally, looking up at the moon. She pushed herself up and laid down beside him, following his gaze to its pockmarked silver surface. Its cool light struck her skin like water.

"I didn't want you to be distracted on the mission," she said quietly.

"I might have tried harder," he argued half-heartedly.

"You might have done something stupid."

He opened his mouth to say something but shut it again. Sasha blew out a long sigh and saw the dust of the barn swirling around her breath. After crying for so long, she didn't really feel happy, but she wasn't sad, either. Her heart felt empty, void. Poured-out.

"How long's it been?" he asked, leaning his feverish head against her shoulder.

"At least since the beginning of summer. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention."

"So two months?"

"A little more, yeah."

Slowly, cautiously, like he was afraid that she could jump away, Jean slipped his hand under the thin fabric of her undershirt, resting it gently on the skin just below her bellybutton. "You have a little bump, Sasha."

She closed her eyes. _God, why'd he have to get sick?_

"I bet we'd make a cute kid," Jean said. He sounded exhausted.

Sasha laced her fingers through his, turning to kiss his burning forehead. "I bet we would," she murmured, stroking his flushed cheek until she was sure he was asleep. The chill of the night had set in; maybe it would help him. Sasha pulled a blanket over herself and leaned into the warmth of his body, their hands still connected over that little bump.


	6. Chapter 6

****Author's Note: I want to take a second to remind you that I do take requests for stories and this is the kind of shit I come up with when no one tells me what to write.**

**But mostly I want to thank you (very much!) for taking the time to read this and say that I love you all!**

**-Final Braus****

* * *

"M-Marco..."

Sasha opened her eyes groggily, shaking her head as they slowly focused on Jean's flushed face, his eyes shut tight and his jaw set. "Are you alright?" she asked nervously.

"Marco!" he shouted, arching his body and throwing his head back. One arm shout out, clawing at the empty air between his body and the lightening sky above them. "Don't let go of me! Marco!"

Sasha leapt up, pinning him down with her body and clapping her hand over his mouth. "What are you thinking?!" she hissed, her palm doing little to muffle what was quickly turning into mindless screaming. "Jean! It's morning! The titans are going to hear you if you do that!"

His breath was ragged and short, coming in gasps. She touched his forehead and realized with a sinking feeling that it was even hotter than before. "Jean?" she asked weakly. "Can you hear me?"

But it was no use. He was locked in his nightmare. She could do nothing but hold him down and try to keep him quiet. In the corner, her horse stamped the ground nervously.

He was getting worse; that much was obvious. This was hysteria. As he bucked and struggled blindly against her, she pressed her head against his chest, listening for his heart. It was beating like a hummingbird, so quick she thought it would burst, and his breath came just as fast.

_Oh no,_ she thought, a hollow void opening up in her chest. _No, Jean. Please, no._

After a long moment, his screams died down and he slumped back into the hay, his face relaxing. He could have passed for being asleep, if it hadn't been for his sickly rapid breath.

"Jean," Sasha said, taking her hand off of his mouth. She touched his cheek and he opened his eyes, bloodshot, glassy.

"Where am I?"

She bit her lip, picking herself up off of his body and crawling across the hay to sit behind him.

"Sasha, why does my leg hurt?"

And then she had to watch as the memories hit him like a fucking rock.

"You're alright," she said gently, pulling him up and resting his head on her chest as he covered his sallow, sick face with his hands and coughed out a dry sob. She held him tighter.

"I'm sorry," he choked.

"You just had a bad dream," she whispered, stroking his hair, resting her chin on the crown of his head. "You're okay. Calm down."

He couldn't seem to stop breathing so quickly. Between gasps, he managed, "I was hanging…from this ledge…and Marco…he was there…and he was trying to pull me up…but then I fell…"

"Shh. Try to breathe normally, Jean. Please."

And he did try. But he couldn't. Looking up at her with scared amber eyes, Jean struggled against his own body to make himself stop. She couldn't watch.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

Sasha shook her head. "Stop saying that."

"But I am sorry," he muttered, and she felt a warm explode on the arms she held around him. "I'm sorry for letting the titan get me—"

She shook her head again. "'Wasn't your fault."

"—And I'm sorry I let myself get so sick."

"Stop."

"I'm sorry I got you pregnant."

He was really crying now, and it was making it even harder for him to breathe. She could feel a hard lump rising up in her throat. "Stop it, please."

He shook his head, tears cutting clean tracks down his grimy cheeks. "I don't want to die, Sasha. I'm scared."

"Jean…"

"You have to get out," he whispered, looking up at her. "Please, take the horse and go."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Sasha—"

"What would I do?" she demanded, swallowing a bitter sob. Her chest hurt. She hoped he didn't know that she was crying. "Where would I go? I couldn't go back to the Survey Corps with a fucking baby, my dad kicked me out, my village is gone…You're all I have, Jean. There isn't anywhere else for me to go."

He seemed to want to argue with her, but couldn't find the words. His body slumped against her, burning up, his eyes glazed. Dead. He started into her eyes, but Sasha felt like she was looking at a doll. Fat, heavy tears rolled down to drip off her chin. "I'm not going to leave you," she breathed, running her thumb along his cheek. "As long as you're here I'm not going anywhere."

He reached up and took her hand. "I love you, Sasha. I love you so much." Smiling sadly, he pressed her hand to his chest, over his pounding heart. "But you're not just in this for you."

She said nothing. Jean's golden eyes turned towards the sky. "You want to know something stupid?" he asked, not waiting for an answer. "I'm actually kind of happy. You're going to be a great mom."

"Stop it," Sasha sobbed, clinging to his uniform, clutching him to her chest. "You're going to be fine."

"Nah, Sash, I'm not. Otherwise you wouldn't be crying so hard." She buried her face in his shoulder, her shoulders shaking. She couldn't stop. "Hey, listen to me," he said, turning and weakly pressing a kiss to her temple. "Tell our kid…that I loved them a lot. Can you do that for me?"

She bit her lip, nodding. He smiled. "Good. That's good. And tell them I was a hero. Make up some really brave story about how I died so that they're proud that I was their father. Tell them I took down twenty titans before they got me. Something good."

"You are brave, Jean," Sasha whispered. "You're so brave."

A wispy white cloud drifted across the sky, catching the morning sunlight and turning gold. His eyes followed it, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his dry lips. "I wish. Maybe then I wouldn't be so afraid."

Sasha felt like someone had punched her chest in, torn out her heart and left nothing but crushed space behind. She couldn't breathe past the knot in her throat. "Please don't go," she begged, clinging to him like there was nothing else in the world. "I can't do this without you. I love you."

"I know, Sasha." He looked at her one last time, managed a smile. "I love you too."

.

Sasha slid out from under his body, laying him down on the soft hay and pulling the blanket over his ruined form. She stood up. Tears streamed down her face, ignored, as she lurched away from the corpse and towards the place where she had left her maneuver gear.

There was a tiny storage closet in the corner of the barn, a place where some man she didn't know and didn't care about had stored the shit he kept to keep his animals alive long enough to kill them. She staggered towards it like her legs couldn't hold up her own weight. Pulling off her shirt, she shoved it into the crack under the door.

She fumbled with the tank of her gear. She couldn't tell if it was the darkness or her own shaking hands that made it take so long.

The gas hissed, soft as a whisper.

She leaned back against the wall, resting her heavy head against the cool, old wood and hoping it would be quick. She heard her horse nickering nervously outside, knowing that something was wrong but too dull to realize what. The image of his body hung before her in the darkness like a tattoo on her vision, his pale face and sunken, dead, beautiful eyes locked on heaven.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed, touching the slight swell of her belly.

Her head was light. She curled into herself, pressing her face into her knees. She inhaled deeply and felt her heart racing, colors popping across her vision in little dots. Her brain flooded with images, memories and fragments of thoughts flashing through her mind. Her head was pounding, her pulse loud as a drum in her ears. So loud she couldn't think.

She could feel his hand on her shoulder, cool as moonlight.

"I'm sorry."


End file.
